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THE 



DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 



C1I1USTO E T C RU CI. 



THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 



V 



THE 



DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 



BY 



,. 



WILLIAM GILES DIX. 






CHRISTO ET CKUCI 




BOSTON : 
IDE AND DUTTON 

106 WASHINGTON ST. 

1853. 



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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by 

W. G. DIX, 

In the Cler&'s office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



CAMBRIDGE : 
ALLEN AND FARNHAM, PRINTERS. 



PREFACE. 



Notwithstanding the Mohammedan predi- 
lections prevailing in this Christian land, where 
no reasons founded on the balance of power can 
be given for sustaining a fabric which has been 
the curse of the world, the writer takes the lib- 
erty to express his sympathy with the Christian 
population of the Ottoman Empire rather than 
with their Pagan oppressors. During the last 
Greek Revolution, the sympathies of his coun- 
trymen were with those striving to throw off the 
yoke of Moslem bondage ; and, though some, 
whose voices rung through the land in behalf of 
Grecian liberty, are now silent in death, yet 
their places have been filled in the Senate by 



VI PREFACE. 

those who then drew many a bright lance from 
classic armories against the Power which de- 
vastated Greece. May Christian America soon 
be urged by the Senate of the United States to 
take her right position in the final struggle be- 
tween the Crescent and the Cross ! 

The writer has also dwelt upon the ultimate 
significance of the fall of the Ottoman Dominion. 
Forces springing originally from regions near 
those whence poured the invading races upon the 
Eoman Empire, seem about to reduce forever 
the supremacy of the Roman Church. Saxon 
and Sclavonic energies are in the main com- 
mitted against the acknowledgment of the de- 
mands of the Roman See, which, claiming to 
be the most ancient communion, especially 
challenges the allegiance of the Christian world 
by the decisions of the Council of Trent, held 
since the Reformation. French power, the most 
expansive and resolute of national sovereignties 
under the sceptre of Rome, rules quite as much 
as it obeys. Austria would fall in pieces should 



PREFACE. Vll 

she attempt to fight the battles of R,ome. The 
restoration of Constantinople to Christian rule 
will break the supremacy of Rome, and open 
the way for the Union of the Church upon the 
basis of early, uncorrupted faith, hitherto de- 
feated by the refusal of Rome to recede from 
her claims of universal dominion. In the reor- 
ganization of the Church, Rome must be con- 
tent to share that sovereignty which she has for 
ages deemed and declared her exclusive right. 

It looks certain that England, Russia, France,, 
and the United States will control the civil 
power of the globe. To these may be added 
Germany, if the German empire be restored ;. 
otherwise, there will be no Germany left, when 
the boundaries of European States shall next 
be fixed ; and if the German empire be restored,, 
the culture, energy, and religious advancement 
of Prussia must give to her the ascendency. 
The predominance of ecclesiastical power will 
then be against the Church of Rome, which, 
no longer able to resist, by her arrogant de- 



Vlll PREFACE. 

mands, the organic unity of Christendom, will 
be compelled, for the preservation of any meas- 
ure of power, to make such concessions as will 
forward that result. 

The influence of Napoleon Bonaparte in 
strengthening the foundations of civil and ec- 
clesiastical power, while developing the energies 
and procuring the rights of individual men, is 
more clearly understood now, than when it was 
in vogue to denounce every motive and every 
act of Napoleon, whose excessive ambition and 
serious faults one may admit, while claiming 
that the good which he did and the seeds of 
greater good which he left to germinate, cannot 
be soon measured by figures. The world needs 
another Napoleon, a spirit as vivid, informing, 
penetrating, irradiating as his, as inspiring to 
every heart, as impulsive to every hand, as de- 
termined, as capable, to rule. France will never 
recede far from the attitude towards the Church 
of Rome taken by Napoleon, who, while invig- 
orating Italian supineness with French energy, 



PREFACE. IX 

secured for France a degree of control, the value 
of which will be seen, when the reorganization 
of the Universal Church shall become alike re- 
quisite and possible. 

If no complications of policy stood in the 
way, it would be confessed without reserve, 
that Moslem sovereignty over Christian terri- 
tory and Christian people is anomalous and 
wrong ; and that Russia, in demanding free- 
dom for the Greek Church, upon her own soil, 
is very far from deserving reproach. But, revo- 
lutions in Europe, though directed against the 
Christian Faith, have but advanced its power; 
and the deepest gloom of the Church has fre- 
quently preceded her brighter glory. The long 
night of Ottoman rule may be followed by the 
most benignant and majestic day of the Chris* 
tian Church, since her elect and precious Cor- 
ner Stone was laid in agony and blood. Since, 
then, the Church has nothing to fear from revo- 
lutions, and since the true prosperity of Chris- 
tian states is exactly measured by the life and 

B 



X PREFACE. 

glory of the Church, it is impolitic as well as 
impious to preserve that acknowledged wrong, 
the Ottoman sovereignty, from the fear of the 
results of its overthrow. If the Eastern ques- 
tion were free of accidental interests, every 
Christian Power on the globe would unite to 
tear the Crescent from every foot of Christian 
soil. The united vigor of Christendom might 
have rescued Constantinople more than three 
centuries ago ; and the revival of the Greek 
Church then, by causing the reformation of the 
abuses of Rome at the source, might have pre- 
vented the need of the German separation, and 
have healed the dissension between the East 
and the West. A divided Church and a di- 
vided world have been the just recompense 
for allowing the first altars of Christ to remain 
in the hands of the Infidel. Eight hundred 
years have nearly fled, since Christendom first 
arose to redeem the Holy Land ; but the Cres- 
cent still rules in Jerusalem. The Crusades, 
with the help of God, saved the main structure 



PREFACE. XI 

of the Church ; the next, with the same glorious 
aid, will restore its complete unity. 

If his views shall fail to accord with those of 
many whose judgment he reveres, the writer 
has only to say that he could not have spoken 
otherwise, while true to his convictions, even 
if he had no motive of loyalty towards a Uni- 
versity, consecrated to Christ and the Church. 
With no more appropriate hope can he welcome 
the dawn of Advent, than that the Cross may 
soon be triumphant in the city of Constantine 

and in the city of David. 

W. G. D. 

Cambridge, Monday before Advent, 1853. 



THE 



DOOM OF THE CRESCEXT. 



The recent interchange of affectionate greet- 
ings between the Reformed Church of Christ in 
America and the Church of England, was a 
proof that the American Church, though moving 
rightly in a separate orbit, is bound to the An- 
glican communion -by closer ties than to any 
other on earth. The members of the English 
delegation must have seen with joy a church 
small in numbers, but greater in influence, in 
proportion to its numbers, than any denomina- 
tion in the land, which has reared' her bulwarks 
of stately order in every part of the Union, pro- 
ceeding in the quiet faith and fear of God to 
celebrate her lowly and majestic services, and 
then to hold her legislative sessions, after a 
model closely resembling the constitution of the 

1 



2 THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 

republic, and with no prolocutor standing ready, 
with his summary orders of prorogation, to break 
down the striving will, and to crush the patient 
heart. The Church of England, though in 
times past she may have looked too coldly 
on that communion which has never failed to 
acknowledge her guiding and sustaining hand 
in early weakness and peril, cannot now fail to 
see, though her eyes were blinded with seven 
folds, the significance of that convention legis- 
lating freely and safely for a church that has 
already extended her sway of beneficence and 
peace from the icy North to the palmy South, 
and from the Atlantic to the Pacific shore, mak- 
ing laws and making them obeyed, while the 
Church of England, beholds with wonder an 
Apostolic church, akin to her, lifting the banner 
of the cross throughout the American Union, 
patient in sorrows, and unterrified by foes ; while 
more ecclesiastical liberty is enjoyed in a church 
that rears pine cathedrals in the wilderness than 
the Church of England enjoys in cathedrals of 
stone, built centuries ago, and to last for cen- 
turies to come. May she not disdain the lesson 
from her daughter's lips, and acknowledge the 



THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 3 

province of America to be, to infuse the New 
World into the Old, not only in the State, but 
in the Church. 

But if the American Church had no reason 
of shame in welcoming her guests from Eng- 
land to a well-ordered household, she may re- 
call with less pleasure the establishment and 
then the abandonment of the mission of fellow- 
ship with churches in far more bitter bondage 
than the Church of England. Events in the 
East and the portentous shadows of greater 
events to come recall to vivid memory the history 
of the rise and fall of the mission of the Ameri- 
can Church at Constantinople, a mission which 
that church will yet regret with contrite tears 
having abandoned, since it gave to her the 
opportunity, for which she should have thanked 
her divine Master without ceasing, to afford 
Christian comfort and counsel to her captive 
sisters in the East, who having been in bon- 
dage and entreated ill more than four hundred 
years, now see the hand beginning to appear 
which shall shake off their grievous chains and 
emancipate their suffering hearts. 

If that mission had been sustained through 



4 THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 

good report and ill, how much more consist- 
ently might the Church of Christ upon the 
Western continent congratulate the commun- 
ions in the East, when after such a night their 
dawn of freedom breaks, than now, when they 
may turn and say, " You extended to us and 
then withdrew the hand of Christian fellowship 
and love in the hours of our gloom and slavery ; 
why do you now offer to rejoice with us when 
the star in the east, so long obscured, is rising 
again to dispel the Pagan night ; when the 
sighs of centuries are about to be exchanged 
for loud hosannas, and tears of grief for tears of 
joy ? Here, in the birthplace of our common 
Faith, — here, where the Christian religion was 
first enthroned as the ruling power of the world, 
have we been walking with our faces bent upon 
the earth in sorrow, waiting for deliverance in 
God's good time, — and you, sharing with us 
in apostolic order, in penitential litanies and in 
liturgic praise, after coming to look with pity 
on our wounds, went away upon the other side 
and left us to bear alone our yoke of woe." 

But, if a measure of complaint may be min- 
gled with acknowledgments of sympathy with 



THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 5 

past and present oppression and of rejoicing at 
the prospect of its speedy end, let not that sym- 
pathy and that rejoicing be withheld by the 
Church of Christ upon these shores, free to grow 
and to expand into the consummate flower of 
apostolic beauty, although restrained, for the 
trial of her patience and the perfection of her 
faith, from the exercise of many of her divine 
prerogatives. 

It should move the depths of Christian joy, 
that, although chosen Israel enslaved in Baby- 
lon for seventy years wept in silence at the 
memory of Zion, and could not sing her solemn 
songs, the churches in the East, in their afflic- 
tion of seven times seventy years, while the 
mortal foe of Christ has kept his heel upon 
their brows, have still remembered in plaintive 
adoration the harp of David and the sacrifice 
of " David's greater son ; " and, in many a con- 
secrated chapel, in secluded valleys and on lofty 
crags, they have served God in saintly seclusion 
and in active charity, found joy in the midst of 
sorrow in the continued celebration of matins 
and of vespers, in midnight orisons and in eu- 
charistic grace. And let thanks be given to 



6 THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 

God, that the church of America can express 
her joy, unfettered by secondary question 3 of 
the balance of power and the ascendency of 
nations, that this continuance in patient suffering 
is about to meet its three-fold recompense of 
splendor, might, and grace. 

When Greece rebelled against the Turks, elo- 
quent voices in the American senate, and by the 
press, appealed to men to help the Greeks for 
the sake of Homer and of Demosthenes, of Phi- 
dias and of Pindar, for the sake of Athens and 
the soil of Sparta ; but with greater right may 
Christendom be called upon to help the lands 
of the East which Mohammedan arms have 
subdued, but which may God soon release 
from the profaning grasp, the land of Athana- 
sius and of Basil and of Gregory, the land 
where Jewish and Christian prophets and con- 
fessors in bright succession longed for the com- 
ing of the Messiah or rejoiced that he had 
come, the regions where Apostles preached, the 
humble grave where Jesus wept, the holy mount 
where Jesus prayed, the holier mount where 
Jesus died. 

If the plain of Marathon was too sacred to 



THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 7 

remain in the power of the Turk, why has the 
Christian world looked on with apathy, when 
the garden of Gethsemane has been trodden for 
centuries by the insulting feet of the Infidel ? 
The city of the Parthenon was deemed too glo- 
rious to continue the capital of a Turkish prov- 
ince, but the site of the Temple of Solomon has 
been desecrated by the Mosque of Omar, and 
Christian nations have consented. The desola- 
tion of " Scio's rocky isle " is mourned for the 
sake of Homer, who sang Achilles' wrath, but 
where is the lamentation over the city of David, 
who sang the praises of Jehovah, so long deso- 
late in the hands of the scorner? The place 
where Demosthenes wielded at will the fierce 
democracy that drank his words, and with 
persuasive force from heathen oracles urged 
Athens to contend with the aspiring Philip, 
was deemed a watchword to wake the world 
for Grecian independence, while daily, hourly, 
is the shrine profaned, named for the temple, 
consecrated to holy wisdom, where Chrysostom, 
whose lips were touched with golden fire from 
the altar of God, inflamed his hearers with celes- 
tial love, and besought them in the name and 



8 THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 

by the strength of Christ, to keep their souls 
with vigilance against besieging sin. Parnas- 
sus, for its inspiring muses, was thought worthy 
of defence, but no hand freed from Islam's 
foul dominion the Mount of Olives, consecrated 
by His prayers, and His serene instruction, who 
spake as never poet sung. The Christian world 
has preferred Grecian culture to the love of God, 
the fine arts to the Cross of Christ, Pindar 
to Isaiah, Demosthenes to Paul, Plato to the 
Son of God. 

The Bay of Salamis has been deemed more 
divine than Jordan's flood, whose sacred waters 
fell upon the brow, to bleed ere long beneath 
the crown of thorns, and touched the feet to 
be anointed soon with precious ointment, and 
with more precious tears. Intellectual sympa- 
thies were awakened by the memory of the fatal 
cup of which calm Socrates partook, but tears 
were not shed at the remembrance of that other 
cup, full of bitter grief and pain to Him who 
drank, but of reviving balm to souls diseased 
in every age and clime. Leonidas and his 
three hundred followers who fought to free 
their native land, were stronger in the affections 



THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 9 

of Christian men, than the Patriarch who wres- 
tled singly till the dawning of the day with the 
angel of God, for priceless blessings for all after 
time ; but Thermopylae, famed for that manly 
resistance to the Persian host, is less momen- 
tous to the history of the race, than many des- 
perate strongholds, where Prophets, Apostles, 
Martyrs, fought with principalities and powers, 
and died in loyalty to Christ, to spread his spirit- 
ual kingdom, against which the gates of Hell 
shall not prevail, for the Church of the Living 
God, sustained by Trinal Deity, amidst the 
wrecks of empire and the storms of fate, shall 
conquer every foe. 

But the wheels of the divine sovereignty re- 
volve, though, like the hands upon the dial-plate, 
they may not be seen to move : but those little 
hands measure silently each minute, until the 
hour has gone, and so speed days and months 
and years and centuries to the inexorable bar, 
to testify with trembling what they saw and 
heard and did in time ; and those wheels of 
Providence, though sometimes seeming to stand 
still, move evermore, for a living spirit is in them, 
and they cannot stay, and they are full of eyes to 



10 THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 

see each divine decree at its appointed time, and 
faithfully fulfilled. 

Since that deadly miasma from Arabian bogs 
came over Christendom like the march of night 
on the glad provinces of day, and obscured the 
places once made bright by the fine gold of 
the seven golden candlesticks, and by the splen- 
dor of the seven stars held in the right hand of 
the Son of Man, and after having thus dark- 
ened the Paradise of Faith, settled like a black, 
impenetrable cloud over the capital of the Em- 
pire of the East, and threatened to involve the 
Eternal City herself in an effusion of death more 
perilous than any that ever exhaled from Pontine 
Marshes, Christian men have so long seen Mo- 
hammedan power domineer over the first altars 
of Christianity, that they have come to regard 
it as well nigh a part of organic law that the 
arch-deceiver of Mecca should reign until the 
consummation of all things over Christian Asia, 
.iEgypt, and the city of Constantine. 

But those wheels of Providence, full of the eyes 
of the divine watchfulness, have brought in their 
silent courses, the hour fraught with the fulfilment 
of the prophecies of both dispensations, for the 



THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 11 

great northern eagle, whose wings overshadow 
two continents, hath arisen from his eyry of 
ice, and with eyes like flames of fire, hath seen 
the doves of the household of Christ bound fast 
in the snares which the False Prophet hath set, 
and, as he bends his unswerving flight to tear 
asunder the snares, that the doves may again 
nestle in peace and freedom on the olive- 
branches of Zion, all men quake with fear 
at the shadow of the doom of the Vulture of 
Mecca. 

But the Lion of England, the guardian of 
Faith, and the Eagle of France, the symbol of 
Fame, prepare to defend the infamous vulture. 
No such treachery to Christ has been seen since 
the kiss of Judas. Nations professing Chris- 
tianity, which have sent hosts of brave men to 
fight the good fight of Faith upon the plains of 
Palestine, and which owe all their greatness to 
the Christian Religion, are now ready, in the 
hope of reward, to desert their standards and 
their historic position, and to crucify the Son of 
God afresh, and put him to an open shame. 
One may almost expect to see every consecrated 
tower, every spire surmounted by the cross 



12 THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 

throughout the British Empire and on the 
faithless continent of Europe shaken down 
by the earthquake of omnipotent wrath. Turk- 
ish Power has run riot for centuries in the very- 
home of Christendom ; she has spread her insult- 
ing conquests, almost to the extinction of the 
Christian name, she has desecrated the holiest 
places of the Christian Faith, and torn the cross 
from sacred shrines to plant in its stead the Pa- 
gan crescent. Christian nations have lain pros- 
trate in the dust, while Mohammedan Power has 
trampled upon their necks with the derision of 
fiends, and now, when the day of vengeance for 
these things has come, one sees almost enough 
to show that the False Prophet has silently 
won over western Europe to his infernal stand- 
ard. Christian nations form alliances with the 
very power which has done the most to crush 
them, for if Rome had fallen, the Crescent would 
have ruled the world ; and, now, when Islam has 
reached her point of destiny, when it must either 
fall forever, or press with new vigor on the do- 
main of Christ, Western Europe is disposed to 
act as though the only question were whether 
the balance of civil power should be preserved 



THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 13 

between several States, and not, whether the 
cross should keep its aggressive ascendency 
throughout the globe. 

If Mohammedan power shall oppress for half 
a century longer the churches in the East, those 
nations, which, professing to be Christian, shall 
have caused the dawn of the liberty of those 
communions to be quenched again in night, will 
deserve, — though divine charity may withhold 
the curse, — anathema-maranatha now and for- 
evermore for their treachery to Christ and His 
Church ; and, unless they renounce their treach- 
ery, they will, sooner or later, fall in common 
destruction with the foe of the crucified. That 
doom may be theirs now, unless they take the 
stand required to restore the unity of the church ; 
and the first step towards that end is the libera- 
tion of the Greek communion from the yoke of 
Islam. 

The Emperor of Russia, while contending for 
the honors of the Christian name, if deserted by 
the rest of Christendom, will yet stand like Ab- 
diel, " faithful found among the faithless," and 
when the time for action comes, will go forward 
conquering not alone the hosts of the False 



14 THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 

Prophet, but, if they oppose him, forces of apos- 
tate Christian nations, until the Crescent shall 
be humbled before the symbol of our faith, and 
the city of Constantine, for four centuries the 
prey of the spoiler, shall become the capital of a 
reformed and ransomed church, the joy and light 
of the East. As saith the Lord, by the mouth 
of his prophet Isaiah,* " I have raised up one 
from the North, and he shall come ; from the 
rising of the sun shall he call upon my name ; 
and he shall come upon princes as upon mortar, 
and as the potter treadeth clay." May Chris- 
tian nations avoid that doom by making speed 
to disannul their covenant with death. 

It is an especial cause of mourning that Eng- 
land, which owes her laws, literature, arts, social 
culture, her energy in tillage of the soil, in com- 
merce and in manufactures, her glory abroad 
and her thrift at home, her cathedrals and uni- 
versities, her castles, cottages, and palaces, — all 
that she has and is and hopes to be, — to the 
expansive and ennobling power of the Christian 
Faith, that, when the hour has come for her to 

* Is. 41 : 25. 



THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 15 

stand by that faith which has made pagan Brit- 
ain the chief of Christian lands, and for her chal- 
lenged universal fear, that she should falter in 
allegiance to her Lord, who has given to her an 
arm of power in every land, and baptized her 
blessings with the waters of every sea. Now is 
the crisis of English destiny ; if she shall deny 
her Lord, then will all her glory fade as the early 
dew, and that Red Cross banner, the sign and 
pledge of victory, w r hen advancing as the ensign 
of a Christian realm, that Red Cross banner, 
hallowed by the glories of a thousand years and 
by the memory of brave knights and of a captive 
king, who fought for the Redeemer's tomb in 
Holy Palestine, that Red Cross banner, if no 
longer true, it shall enfold in brotherly embrace 
the standard of the Crescent, it will fall with 
that, and be eaten by the moths and rust of 
oblivion. England, Christian England, if she 
be ruled by a Moslem Cabinet, will set, like the 
morning star, never to rise again. May better 
counsels prevail and better deeds be done. Then 
shall the Red Cross banner, loyal to the anointed 
Son of God, be borne aloft and onward, until 
from the highest minaret of the Mosque of Omar, 



16 THE BOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 

it shall wave in triumph over the Holy Land 
redeemed for his dear sake, who, by his blood 
hath ransomed faithful souls. Then the Church 
of England, the North Star of Christendom, 
which has spread guiding light over frozen seas 
and tropic climes, over valleys green and moun- 
tain tops, over India's plains and Afric's shores, 
and New Zealand's bay of isles, shall see from 
her divine watchtower united Christendom re- 
pairing with hands clasped in adoration to the 
mother of their peace and joy, Jerusalem saved 
by the hosts of God's elect from Pagan rule, and 
shall see her glorious power extend from the 
banks of " silver-winding Thames " to those of 
Siloah's brook. 

Then shall the veil be lifted from the hearts of 
the children of Israel, dispersed in every land, 
as they behold their redemption drawing nigh 
under the banner of the crucified, and see the 
Cross advancing to make Jerusalem the seat 
of universal empire. Then, as Saul who con- 
sented unto the death of the first martyr Stephen, 
after that he was dazzled in the way by the 
glory of the Messiah, and when his eyes were 
opened saw no man, but was for " three days 



THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 17 

without sight, and did neither eat nor drink," was 
blest by the hands of Ananias, and heard his voice 
saying, " The Lord, (even Jesus, that appeared 
unto thee in the way as thou earnest,) hath sent 
me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be 
filled with the Holy Ghost. And immediately 
there fell from his eyes as it had been scales : 
and he received sight forthwith, and arose, and 
was baptized. And when he had received meat,, 
he was strengthened," — so the children of the 
sons of Judah, who consented unto the death 
of Stephen's Lord, " the first-born among many 
brethren," shall kneel in penitence and faith, 
while on their brows shall rest the hands of 
Christ's anointed messengers, who shall say to 
them with soft, absolving grace, " Brethren of Is- 
rael, in the name of the ascended Lord of Glory, 
who prayed and died for you upon his Cross of 
pain, be all your unbelief forgiven evermore." 
Then, the blindness of eighteen centuries shall 
be dissolved, and each of the sons and daugh- 
ters of Judea, as they turn their eyes heaven- 
ward, where on the Eternal Throne the Mes- 
siah shares the glory which he had with the 
Father before the world was, shall say with 

2 



18 THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 



\ 



Thomas, no longer faithless, but believing, " My 
Lord and my God," and shall arise and be 
baptized, and partake of the blessed eucharistic 
food, which strengthens Christian souls. Then, 
with hearts full of consoling, rapturous pardon, 
and forgiving also contumely towards them, 
they shall return with loud rejoicing from wan- 
derings far and long, to loved Judea's shrines of 
grace, to join with Christians in the songs of 
David, and to adore David's Son and Lord in 
Hebron's vale and on Zion's holy hill. 

If the character of coming events in the East, 
more momentous for the welfare of the human 
race than any that have occurred since the sun 
was darkened and the vail of the temple rent in 
twain, has drawn this appeal even from near 
these Puritan cloisters against Christian support 
of Islam, may a voice of no uncertain sound 
come forth from venerable Oxford, to warn 
England of her doom, if she shall use her 
consecrated energies to prevent the downfall of 
the Crescent wherever it profanes the earth in 
Europe, Asia, Africa, and to show the sevenfold 
glories that wait to crown her faithful service 
to her Lord, if she shall redeem the time during 



THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 19 

which the existence of the Ottoman Empire 
has been the reproach of Christendom, and the 
chief barrier to the union of dismembered Truth 
again in one organic shape. 

It is a grievous error, that in the coming strug- 
gles between Christianity and Paganism, Turkey 
will be weak. She will be strong. Around the 
unholy standard of the Crescent will throng in 
those eastern valleys of decision not only all 
the Paynim hosts, but also all the traitors and 
apostates of Christendom. The Cross will gain 
no easy victory over Moslem foes and Judas 
friends. The Cross will need the service of all 
faithful hearts. There will be no neutral for- 
tresses to which to flee. All men must take 
their side, as the servants of Christ or as the 
slaves of Perdition. 

France! France! France! bound by every 
pledge of history and by every bond of the 
future to unite in disputing every inch of Mo- 
hammedan sovereignty — will France embrace 
the Crescent ? If so, one may expect to see the 
shades of brave hosts of France that fell in Pal- 
estine, fighting with the Cross upon their helmet 
fronts and on their mail clad hearts to save the 



20 THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 

Saviour's sepulchre, thronging " in complete 
steel " the imperial palaces of France, pacing 
those historic halls with slow and pensive steps 
and pointing to the bloody stains upon their 
armor, reddening from the rust of time, and 
saying, plaintively, " And thou, France ! And 
thou, France ! And thou, France ! " and then 
dissolving into misty air. Then, see the mourn- 
ing shadow of the saintly King, pointing to the 
place of his last breath, wet with the dews of 
seven centuries, near Carthage. As the hosts 
of Pharaoh were overwhelmed by the mighty 
waters, when they pursued the children of Is- 
rael escaping from Egyptian servitude, so the 
armies of France, if they keep back the Chris- 
tian children of the East from passing from 
Mohammedan captivity into the glorious lib- 
erty of the sons of God, the armies of France, 
with their new emperor, not crowned, will sink 
like lead in the Red Sea of Perdition. If in the 
conflicts to expel the False Prophet from Christian 
dominions, is consigned to Russia the redemption 
of Constantinople, and to England the rescue of 
Jerusalem, to France is clearly committed by 
deeds and hopes the liberation of Egypt. The 



THE DOOM OF THE CRESCEXT. 21 

bridge between Macedonian conquest and the 
glory of France will be built, when the Eagles 
of Napoleon shall perch on the citadel of Alex- 
andria. 

Napoleonic ideas require that the repre- 
sentative of him, who brought back France 
from the adoration of the goddess of Reason, 
the concubine of Mohammed, to the Confes- 
sion of Faith, though in Roman formularies, 
which one would not have preferred had the 
question been between Christian doctrines and 
organizations, and not between the hatred of the 
very name of Jesus and of every thing holy, and 
the return of the nation to Christian reverence, 
it is required that the restorer of the sway of 
Napoleon should be mindful of the historic trusts 
connected with Egypt, and that Alexandria, re- 
stored as a Christian capital, under Napoleonic 
energy, must bring splendor to Egypt exceeding 
the Ptolemaic, or Roman glories of the land of 
the Nile. 

In all cases like the interference of France in 
the Papal Government, one must regard the rela- 
tions of time as well as the proportions of faith. 
When the best thing cannot be done, it is madness 



22 THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 

to refuse what may be good, compared with the 
deplorable results of its rejection. If the ques- 
tion were between the restoration of the Pope 
and the establishment of civil government on 
grounds not destructive of faith and charity, 
then, blame too severe cannot fall upon France 
for her interference in Rome ; but, if the ques- 
tion were between the return of the Pope to the 
Quirinal and an Italian Reign of Terror, those 
who have no sympathy with Roman belief will 
yet allow that civil order is a blessing, though 
cast in a mould for which one has no abso- 
lute preference. Whether France were right or 
wrong, the ingratitude of Rome is equally mon- 
strous in refusing to crown her preserver. 

Rome, with all her sins and errors, is too 
venerable to be slain in the night by parricidal 
hands. If she is to die, let her expire by slow 
decay, in the soft Italian twilight, with limbs 
decently composed, while those around hear her 
last sigh more in sorrow than in anger at the 
remembrance of her many faults, and pray for 
her departing soul. But, may she not die, but 
rather put off the dead body of corruption, and 
be born again into the living grace of God) 



THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 23 

and thus renewed in the spirit of her mind, 
be for ages a glorious part of the Universal 
Church, " not having spot or wrinkle, or any 
such thing." 

Some have regarded Luther and the Reform- 
ation as a combined mistake ; but, though the 
mighty Reformer, in combatting with the cor- 
ruptions of ages, handled too roughly some in- 
destructible theories, and ingrafted some private 
interpretations on the Universal Faith, yet, the 
step which he took neither the "World nor the 
Church will take back ; for it settled this point 
forever, that the Church of Christ cannot be re- 
organized upon the basis of the Roman Su- 
premacy. There is also a marvellous and almost 
a divine consistency in the fact, that, at the very 
same Oxford, where men of noble hearts, amidst 
obloquy and reproach, pray and strive for the 
restoration of Unity, a noble monument arises 
to glorious martyrs of the English Church, as a 
symbol of perpetual resistance to the admission 
of Roman Supremacy. 

The downfall of the Mohammedan sovereignty 
must be final and complete, if the three great 
churches of Christendom be supported, each, by 



24 THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 

her strongest defender. And, though in the final 
result, in the reconstruction of the church, the 
Roman Supremacy should be found incompat- 
ible with the rights of the Greek Church, of the 
English Church, and of her daughter and ally, 
the American Church, yet the power of Rome, 
as a part of the reformed, united, universal 
Church, will be more efficient than it now is, 
when her exclusive claims are totally denied in 
some of the most powerful nations of Christen- 
dom, and coldly regarded in some countries that 
nominally acknowledge her sway. Every com- 
munion of Christ upon earth will gain more 
than it resigns by those reformations of doctrine 
and amendments of discipline which will permit 
the union of the Christian World again in one 
spiritual commonwealth, a consummation which 
may God in grace and mercy speed. Each 
church must find a greater reward than sacrifice 
by what she does with a grateful, loving heart, 
to unite the divided Household of Faith. The 
conflicts of the Cross in other days were waged 
to rescue the Holy Tomb from the grasp of the 
Infidel, and to break the advancing force of 
Islam. Now, "the whole creation groaneth," 



THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 25 

"waiting for the manifestation of the sons of 
God " to array the Bride of Christ in her seam- 
less robe of purple and wrought gold. To effect 
this end, for which all the hosts of Heaven pray, 
for which all Christian men on earth should 
pray and strive, and which Hell only opposes, 
Rome may be required to resign that Suprem- 
acy, which she has exercised for so many centu- 
ries, and to be content to serve for the sake of 
Christ, who deserves the service of all. The 
metropolis of Christendom must be transferred 
from the hills of Pagan Rome to the land where 
every hill and every vale is a memorial of the 
Church of God, from the earliest patriarchal 
promise to Messiah's crucifixion. 

The Ottoman Empire has no right to nation- 
ality in Christian dominions. The terror of 
Christendom yielded a constructive right, which 
the criminal sufferance of Christian powers has 
maintained, long after they should have united 
to destroy the Moslem sovereignty. By the 
subjection of a Christian empire the Moham- 
medan sceptre triumphed also over its own alle- 
giance to the Law of Nations, the foundation of 
which is the Christian Religion ; and, in this 



26 THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 

respect, Islam differs from those Pagan States, 
which, never having made Paganism permanent 
on Christian soil, are bound by and have a right 
of appeal to, as a common standard, those prin- 
ciples of natural religion, which, having been 
adopted by the Christian Faith, are a part also 
of international law. But the Ottoman Empire, 
having scorned and trampled on every part of the 
Law of Nations in the days of her aggression, has 
lost the right of appeal to that code, in the days 
of her decline. She lies at the mercy of the 
Christian world, having but one right, to be 
treated humanely upon submission, and but one 
duty, to submit. Of course the obligations of 
Christian charity may far transcend the measure 
of the right of appeal ; and may the subjects 
of the Crescent, surrounded by the forces of 
outraged Christendom, determined to avenge 
the insults of a thousand years, sheathe the 
sword and surrender to that Cross which they 
have striven long and in vain to expel from the 
earth, which it was erected to redeem. 

But while Russia, after years of supineness, 
now stands forth in an attitude of high resolve, 
which will win the admiration of all coming 



THE BOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 27 

time for the unswerving Defender of the Faith, 
the Mohammedan dominion is compared even 
by some Christian people to the injured lamb. 
Lo and behold ! A wonder in these latter days ! 
Much vaunted progress has done its best. There 
is at last a new thing under the sun. The Otto- 
man Empire is a lamb. Tell it not in Scio, for 
few are left to hear it ; whisper it not in the 
slave-marts of Byzantium, for there it may be 
doubted. Let not the news reach Mecca, lest 
it wake the bloody Prophet from his leaden 
shroud to vindicate his tiger creed. 

Thirty years ago, that meek and tender 
lamb, in mirthful play, slew thirty thousand 
Greeks in Scio's isle of beauty, and carried 
forty thousand more away to worse than cruel 
servitude. See! A white cloud arises above 
that fan, ^Egean isle. Now it breaks into 
shadowy outlines of human forms. Dim, bend- 
ing age and manly force, matronly grace and 
maiden bloom, childhood's beauty all are there, 
with faces stern with unavailing courage or 
pale with unavailing fear. " Why point you 
with hands so slowly sad to Scio's rocks and 
fields below ! " A choral voice of sorrow stills 



28 THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 

the rippling of that classic sea, till one might 
hope that Homer's shade were deaf as well as 
blind, if hovering near, never to know that havoc 
made upon his native isle. 

" That Moslem lamb, that Moslem lamb, 
On Scio grazed with teeth of woe ; 
That Moslem lamb, that Moslem lamb, 
Made streams of blood in Scio flow. 

" That lamb tore all our vines away, 
And trampled with too careless feet, 
Until our eyes saw not the day, 
And hoarsely seemed the lamb to bleat. 

" That lamb, upon the ensanguined shore 
Our bodies east bereft of breath, 
Until his carnage all was o'er, 

And then he made deep pits of death. 

" The fairest isle in all this sea 

That Moslem lamb made desolate ; 
We died, some in captivity 

Wore fetters worse than death's red fate." 

An answering sound, the clank of fetters on 
the soul, softened by distance, is borne down 
the narrow strait, and with it comes a plain- 
tive voice. 

" That lamb, that Moslem lamb, — he tore 
Us in our youth from Scio's isle, 
No more to sport upon its shore 
And see the glad iEgean smile. 



THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 29 

" That Moslem lamb, all heedless quite 
Of pleading shrieks to slay us there, 
Brought us to this black home of night, 
His slavery of shame to bear. 

" That Moslem lamb with crimson rain 
Drenched Scio's homes of joy and light ; 
Would that we also had been slain 
Ere suffering here youth's saddest blight." 

O thou sweet and injured lamb, that for ages 
hast grazed upon the pastures of the Lord, and 
quenched thy thirst with Christian blood, thou 
innocent and frisking lamb ! who that has heard 
of thy sportive joy on Scio's garden of delight 
longs not to fold thee in his arms in soft, caress- 
ing tenderness ? 

No, no. Turkish Power is the wolf that has 
broken into the fold of Christ, and Christianity 
in the East is the injured lamb. If, now, by the 
grace of God, help shall come, by which the 
lamb shall put on the strength of the lion, and 
expel the wolf that has sought his prey so long 
in the very Eden of Faith, let Jehovah's name 
be praised from the rising to the setting sun. 

Thou good Shepherd, who gavest thy life for 
thy sheep, behold from the bosom of Triune 
compassion, thy suffering flock. The voice of 



30 THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 

the Alien hath terrified them, and they have 
wandered among the dark mountains, and have 
drunk of the waters of death. But they know 
thy voice, and desire to follow thee, that thou 
mayest lead them again by the still waters, and 
bear them in thy arms, and feed them with thy 
heavenly food, which giveth eternal life. May 
thy sheep who wait for thy coming in the land 
of their captivity, hear thy gracious words, say- 
ing to them, " I am the good Shepherd, and 
know my sheep, and am known of mine. As 
the Father knoweth me, even so know I the 
Father : and I lay down my life for the sheep. 
And other sheep I have which are not of this 
fold : them also I must bring, and they shall 
hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and 
one shepherd." So may it be for thy name's 
sake, thou good Shepherd, thou Lamb of God, 
Lion of the tribe of Judah, King of Kings and 
Lord of Lords. So shall thy sheep of the fold 
of Judah, and those of the spiritual fold of Is- 
rael, the lambs of Christ's flock, be redeemed 
from bondage; and David, in the triumphant 
Kingdom of his Son, shall reign by the Church 
in Jerusalem, and all nations shall flow unto it. 



THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 31 

" Thus saith the Lord God ; Behold I, even 
I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out. 
As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day 
that he is among his sheep that are scattered ; 
so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver 
them out of all places where they have been 
scattered in the cloudy and dark day. And I 
will bring them out from the people, and gather 
them from the countries, and will bring them to 
then own land, and feed them upon the moun- 
tains of Israel by the rivers, and in all the in- 
habited places of the country. I will feed them 
in a good pasture, and* upon the high mountains 
of Israel shall their fold be : there shall they lie 
in a good fold, and in a fat pasture shall they 
feed upon the mountains of Israel. I will feed 
my flock, and I will cause them to lie down, saith 
the Lord God. . . . And I will set up one shep- 
herd over them, and he shall feed them, even my 
servant David ; he shall feed them, and he shall be 
their shepherd. And I the Lord will be their God, 
and my servant David a prince among them; 
I the Lord have spoken it. And I will make 
with them a covenant of peace, and will cause 
the evil beasts to cease out of the land : and 



32 THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 

they shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and 
sleep in the woods. And I will make them and 
the places round about my hill a blessing ; and 
I will cause the shower to come down in his 
season ; there shall be showers of blessing. And 
the tree of the field shall yield her fruit, and the 
earth shall yield her increase, and they shall be 
safe in their land, and shall know that I am the 
Lord, when I have broken the bands of their 
yoke, and delivered them out of the hand of 
those that served themselves of them. And 
they shall no more be a prey to the heathen, 
neither shall the beasts of the land devour them ; 
but they shall dwell safely, and none shall make 
them afraid. And I will raise up for them a 
plant of renown, and they shall be no more con- 
sumed with hunger in the land, neither bear the 
shame of the heathen any more. Thus shall 
they know that I the Lord their God am with 
them, and that they, even the house of Israel, are 
my people, saith the Lord God. And ye, my 
flock, the flock of my pasture, are men, and I 
am your God, saith the Lord God." * 

* Ezekiel xxxiv. 11-31. 



THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 33 

" Thus saith the Lord God : In the day that 
I shall have cleansed you from all your iniqui- 
ties I will also cause you to dwell in the cities, 
and the wastes shall be builded. And the deso- 
late land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate 
in the sight of all that passed by. And they 
shall say, This land that was desolate is become 
like the garden of Eden; and the waste and 
desolate and ruined cities are become fenced 
and are inhabited. Then the heathen that are 
left round about you shall know that I the Lord 
build the ruined places, and plant that that 
was desolate : I the Lord have spoken it, and I 
will do it. Thus saith the Lord God: I will 
yet for this be inquired of by the House of Israel 
to do it for them ; I will increase them with men 
like a flock. As the holy flock, as the flock of 
Jerusalem in her solemn feasts ; so shall the 
waste cities be filled with flocks of men : and 
they shall know that I am the Lord."* 

" Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion ; for 
lo, I come and I will dwell in the midst of thee, 
saith the Lord. And many nations shall be 
*oined to the Lord in that day, and shall be my 

* Ezekiel xxxvi. 33-38. 



34 THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 

people : and I will dwell in the midst of thee, 
and thou shait know that the Lord of hosts hath 
sent me unto thee. And the Lord shall inherit 
Judah his portion in the holy land, and shall 
choose Jerusalem again. Be silent, O all flesh, 
before the Lord : for he is raised up out of his 
holy habitation." * 

The time draws near for the Lord once Incar- 
nate, of the sons of Judah, so long despoiled of 
his heritage by Paynim foes, again to inherit the 
Holy Land, and to restore the seven churches 
and the seven stars : and there shall be " no 
difference between the Jew and the Greek, for 
the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call 
upon him." As led by the star, the Kings of the 
East brought gifts of gold for the infant Christ 
in the manger, so shall the Kings of the West, 
by the light of the Sun, bear a diadem of beauty 
for the brow of the Church of the glorified 
Christ, enthroned on Mount Zion. The robe of 
scorn shall be changed for the vesture of uni- 
versal dominion ; the reed and the crown of 
thorns for the symbols of sovereignty over " ev- 
ery kindred and tongue and people and nation." 

* Zechariah ii. 10-13. 



THE DOOM OF THE CRESCENT. 35 

Beside the shrine of the Holy Sepulchre in Jeru- 
salem shall be built also, upon Mount Zion, a 
shrine to His glory who lives in Heaven, more 
majestic than St. Peter's, and beneath whose 
overhanging dome shall Christian prayers and 
songs ascend in every Christian tongue, to be 
surmounted by the triumphant Cross of gold in 
memory of the bitter Cross of wood. The Sun 
shall no more be dark in Jerusalem, and the vail 
of that Temple shall not be rent. No jeering 
multitude shall cry in the Hall of Judgment, 
" Crucify him ! crucify him ! " but congregated 
Christendom at the altars of Jerusalem and of 
the land of Judea, shall sing, " Worthy is the 
Lamb that was slain to receive power, and 
riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, 
and glory, and blessing." Instead of disciples 
forsaking their Lord and denying his name, his 
faithful ones, from the East and the "West, from 
the North and the South, shall confess his ador- 
able name. Then, until time shall end, the city of 
the Crucified shall be the city of the Glorified. 

Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. 
slcut erat in principio, et nunc, et sexmper 
et in secula seculorum. Amen. 



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